Visualizing the Immune Profile of Mesothelioma Patients
| | |

Visualizing the Immune Profile of Mesothelioma Patients

ByAlex Strauss

Researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have come up with a better way to analyze the immune profile of people with malignant mesothelioma.  A person’s immune profile is the unique set of immune system cells and how they are working at any given time. The functionality of immune system cells in the area right around the tumor – the tumor microenvironment or TME – is especially telling.  The system developed at MD Anderson assigns different colors to key immune system markers. They applied the color system to a sample from the microenvironment of mesothelioma tumors. The result was an image of each tmor’s immune profile. These images could help doctors determine new targets for mesothelioma treatment.  What is…

Autoimmune Disease and Mesothelioma: Will it Impact Survival?
| |

Autoimmune Disease and Mesothelioma: Will it Impact Survival?

ByAlex Strauss

A new lung cancer study suggests that having an autoimmune disease will not necessarily lead to shorter cancer survival. This could be good news for pleural mesothelioma patients suffering from autoimmune disorders. Pleural mesothelioma is a lung-related disease that has many characteristics in common with lung cancer.  The new study comes from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. It included 177 lung cancer patients who also had immune diseases. Doctors compared their survival with a control group of lung cancer patients.   They determined that having an autoimmune disease did not negatively impact lung cancer survival. In fact, some of those patients lived longer than those with healthy immune systems.  What is an Autoimmune Disease? An autoimmune disease is…

Asbestos Affects Immunity, New Report Finds
| | | |

Asbestos Affects Immunity, New Report Finds

ByAlex Strauss

A new report from Japanese doctors shows that asbestos affects immunity. It may help explain why exposure to asbestos can trigger mesothelioma. Asbestos is the primary cause of malignant mesothelioma worldwide. But doctors still do not know for sure how this fibrous mineral causes cancer.  Scientists know that inflammation and irritation have something to do with mesothelioma development. But they still do not know much about how asbestos affects immunity. Asbestos and Mesothelioma Development Asbestos is a silicate mineral that lies deep in the ground. For decades, people mined asbestos for use in various industries. Nearly every building in the US built before the mid-1980s contains some asbestos. But asbestos is also a carcinogen. Even small amounts of asbestos exposure…

Immunotherapy for Pleural Mesothelioma: Biomarkers Urgently Needed
| | | | |

Immunotherapy for Pleural Mesothelioma: Biomarkers Urgently Needed

ByAlex Strauss

A new report says biomarkers are urgently needed to determine which patients would benefit from immunotherapy for pleural mesothelioma.  Researchers made the statement in a review of immunotherapy drugs in testing for malignant mesothelioma.  They say some of these drugs have proven to be more effective than others for asbestos cancer. But a set of biomarkers would go a long way to funneling patients into the right immunotherapy for pleural mesothelioma.  The Status of Immunotherapy for Pleural Mesothelioma Immunotherapy is believed to be the most promising up-and-coming cancer treatment. Immunotherapy treatments harness the strength of the body’s own immune response to attack cancer or help other drugs do so.  Like other types of cancer, mesothelioma cells have ways of avoiding…

New Hope for Relapsed Pleural Mesothelioma?
| | | |

New Hope for Relapsed Pleural Mesothelioma?

ByAlex Strauss

There is new evidence that adding a drug called vorinostat to immunotherapy might help relapsed pleural mesothelioma patients.  The new study comes from the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. It focused on patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Non-small cell lung cancer is similar to pleural mesothelioma in many ways.  The study found that patients who received vorinostat along with an immune checkpoint inhibitor had better results. The findings could be good news for relapsed pleural mesothelioma patients, too. Different Immunotherapy Drugs Vorinostat is sold under the brand name Zolinza. It is a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor. HDAC inhibitors alter the way proteins are expressed inside cells. They also stimulate the immune system.  Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) like Keytruda also…

New Cancer Blood Test Could Identify Early Mesothelioma
| | | | |

New Cancer Blood Test Could Identify Early Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Israeli researchers hope that a new kind of cancer blood test could help detect mesothelioma and other malignancies earlier. Earlier diagnosis could lead to longer mesothelioma survival. The blood test is based on the idea that immune system cells undergo metabolic changes when they fight a cancer like pleural mesothelioma. Different kinds of changes are associated with different kinds of cancers. The new cancer blood test detects these changes. Immune System Cells and Metabolism The immune system is the body’s primary way of defending itself against diseases like malignant mesothelioma. Metabolism refers to the way immune system cells expend energy to fight cancer.  An Israeli company is developing the new cancer blood test. It focuses on the metabolism of immune…

Immunotherapy for Peritoneal Mesothelioma: New Drug Trial Begin
| | | |

Immunotherapy for Peritoneal Mesothelioma: New Drug Trial Begin

ByAlex Strauss

Researchers in Maryland and Missouri have started human testing of a new type of immunotherapy for peritoneal mesothelioma. If the human trial of this new CAR T-cell therapy goes as well as the laboratory tests, this could be good news for many people with asbestos cancer. CAR stands for chimeric antigen receptor. CAR T-cell therapy works by “reprogramming” a patient’s immune system to fight cancer cells. Tests show this therapy can work well for blood-based cancers like leukemia. But the results have not been as good for solid tumors like peritoneal mesothelioma. MaxCyte is the American company than makes the new drug. They are hoping that their approach to immunotherapy for peritoneal mesothelioma will be better. Preparing CAR T-cell Therapy…

Long Term Mesothelioma Survival with Immune System Activation
| | | | | | | | |

Long Term Mesothelioma Survival with Immune System Activation

ByAlex Strauss

A small group of Australian mesothelioma patients have reportedly lived more than twice as long as expected with a combination of standard chemotherapy and immune system manipulation with the CD40 protein. The CD40 protein plays a role in a broad range of immune and inflammatory responses in the body. Studies in mice have found that activating CD40 with an activating antibody may work “synergistically” with chemotherapy drugs to fight cancer. To see whether CD40 activation could produce a similar response in human patients, researchers with the University of Western Australia and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth recruited 15 malignant pleural mesothelioma patients in the early stages of the disease. The patients all received both standard chemotherapy (pemetrexed and cisplatin)…

Asbestos Causes Autoimmune Responses Connected to Mesothelioma
|

Asbestos Causes Autoimmune Responses Connected to Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Mesothelioma and lung cancer are not the only risks associated with exposure to toxic minerals like asbestos. A study out of Idaho State University finds that asbestos also has a negative effect on the immune system. Once heavily used in construction and manufacturing, asbestos has been known for decades as the cause of mesothelioma, a rare but serious cancer. In recent years, another mineral called erionite has been suspected of causing mesothelioma. In the US, erionite has been found in gravel mined and used on roads, particularly in the state of North Dakota. Although the risks of mesothelioma from erionite and asbestos are understood, less is known about the immune system’s response to these minerals. In a report in Toxicology…

|

Asbestos Causes Autoimmine Responses Connected to Mesothelioma

ByMatt Clarke

Mesothelioma and lung cancer are not the only risks associated with exposure to toxic minerals like asbestos. A study out of Idaho State University finds that asbestos also has a negative effect on the immune system. Once heavily used in construction and manufacturing, asbestos has been known for decades as the cause of mesothelioma, a rare but serious cancer. In recent years, another mineral called erionite has been suspected of causing mesothelioma. In the US, erionite has been found in gravel mined and used on roads, particularly in the state of North Dakota. Although the risks of mesothelioma from erionite and asbestos are understood, less is known about the immune system’s response to these minerals.  In a report in Toxicology…